Transforming Location Intelligence Into Profit

By: Adriana Noton - May 9th, 2011  Filed under: Location Intelligence, spatial analysis, Technology Add Comment

More businesses are now realizing that technology is only as good as the content and quality of the data that is being managed. Location intelligence provides the capability to organize and understand convoluted processes through the use of geographic relationships. At an enterprise level, Location Intelligence has the capacity to optimize business processes to improve profitability and competitiveness. Location intelligence helps businesses use the principles of location to organize, reason, plan, and problem solve. The degree of information is enriched by the successful integration into a process that results in better business decision making. Transforming location intelligence into profit is about transforming business processes to create more enterprise opportunities.

The business use of location intelligence can be divided into the following three sub-categories that are designed to improve profitability.

Consumer Applications: These are enterprise applications that build loyalty among customers and influence purchasing behaviors. For example, retailers can execute store-specific promotions with more accuracy or use location intelligence to enhance loyalty program services.

Customer Service: Applications that facilitate customer service and self-service to improve the overall
customer experience. For example, a government agency can more efficiently measure service levels or
plan for the distribution of services that are in many cases dependent on variables that change over
space, such as household income or number of children.

Enterprise Decision Support: Enterprise applications that help create optimal business strategies where the outcome is improved profitability. For example, identifying common customers and determining how to offer services to achieve the greatest value.

To access all possible revenue opportunities through location intelligence, a location intelligence provider should be able to provide the following:

All Validated Addresses in a Market: Creating the capability to determine the exact households
in a serviceable market’

Mapping to the Property: Adding geo-targeted precision through geographic references to the
property parcel or roof-top levels for contemporary location intelligence applications.

Residential, Business and Unit Information: Illuminating residential and office buildings with
access to validated unit and floor information.

Address Management: Address validation, data cleansing, and data maintenance. The enterprise benefits from clean, current, and standardized address elements with geographically explicit references. verifying the existence of individual addresses by matching them against a master address database of functional addresses.

Mapping Addresses: Transforming addresses to embed explicit references of location. This
allows the enterprise to map customers and to understand the opportunities among business
assets, programs and competitive threats.

Standardizing Addresses: Ensures a common address structure, syntax, and nomenclature.
A corporate-wide level of standardization allows for more predictable levels of data quality
and system performance.

Merging customer information from a master address database provides complete viewing of all addressed dwellings. This allows for product penetration views, even into Multiple Dwelling Unit (MDU) buildings. Changes to customer product and service levels by building can now be measured to assess marketing, sales, and operational activities. Using location intelligence helps a business understand fundamental characteristics about customers, prospects, and their potential relationships to an enterprise’s revenue-generating operations. Location Intelligence has the capacity to optimize business processes to improve profitability and gain a competitive edge.

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Location Intelligence: Leveraging the Power of Canadian Postal Code Mapping

By: Adriana Noton - April 6th, 2011  Filed under: Location Intelligence, postal code map, spatial analysis, Technology Add Comment

In the business world, location is the new intelligence. Providing a location based view to business intelligence helps businesses maintain a competitive edge. Today, a postal address means much more than just sending mail. Businesses are able to use location intelligence to leverage Postal Code data to better address market opportunities and risks in an effort to grow their business and make business operations more efficient.

When defining Location Intelligence, it is often described as the ability to visualize geographic and spatial data to gain vital business insights and make better business decisions. Location intelligence software allows businesses to view detailed color-coded maps and work with interactive analytics. By consolidating a geospatial database enterprise, businesses are better able to leverage location based data such as postal codes to gain a more insightful view when they evaluate their competitors, profile customers and potential customers, manage their marketing budget assets, and identify new business opportunities.

Location intelligence services help a business better target marketing potential, reduce risk, and streamline operational efficiencies. By using Address Recognition and Address Geocoding web services and software, a business is better able to leverage address recognition where they have the ability to correct, standardize, and verify addresses. Utilizing address geocoding gives businesses the ability to visualize a validated address while also geocoding other places in the area using postal codes such as streets, nearby businesses, competitors, supply routes, intersections, and more, with the highest level of accuracy. Location intelligence databases provide access to real-time updates of reliable location content. The database contains a wealth of not just addresses, but also address-related content. The result is reliable information about a potential market that allows for better addressing of risk and opportunity.

Geocoding is an essential component of location intelligence. The process of geocoding an address involves assigning a unique latitude and longitude to a physical location. It can pinpoint the location down to the building rooftop. By leveraging location intelligence using postal code mapping, businesses can integrate data about policies, terrain, geographical boundaries, routing, and demographics. They have the ability to visually and identify their risk exposures, and mitigate those risks.

In terms of sales, marketing, and distribution, location intelligence using postal code maps helps businesses leverage such vital business operation areas. Such knowledge and benefits that can be extracted include: optimize sales processes, identify areas of market potential, and match networks, sales, and marketing, in order to make the most out of that market’s potential. As well, businesses can utilize demographics, consumer buying trends, and lifestyle information to better understand their customers and develop better customer service programs in order to realize the highest sales potential.

Today, more businesses are realizing the benefits and necessity of using location intelligence solutions to grow and expand their business while maintaining competitiveness in such a highly competitive world. Using such solutions as postal code maps allows businesses to gather vital data to help them make better businesses decisions that ultimately leads to success. Using postal code maps definitely improves a businesses bottom line.

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Location Intelligence: Important Support for Mineral Exploration

By: Adriana Noton - February 4th, 2011  Filed under: spatial analysis, Technology Add Comment

The natural resource industry depends on technical data to be able to locate, analyze, and develop their main assets. In the mineral exploration industry, location is everything. Location intelligence solutions have proven to be essential in the mineral exploration industry. By using a comprehensive location intelligence system, companies can find the exact location of the largest resource concentration. Location intelligence technology allows mineral exploration scientists and researchers to make more accurate decisions resulting in greater use of time and money.

Location intelligence solutions allows mineral technical staff to integrate data from a number of different sources, put all of the data in a central geospatial environment, and then provide the analytical tools to put the data in their own framework. Using such location technology as satellite sensors that contain multiple wave band colors, scientists are able to interpret short wave infrared, near infrared, and thermal infrared wave lengths to identify the earth’s various structural features. As well, thematic mapping and multi-spectral imaging allows for the collection of various vegetation, rock, and soil properties. The data can be used to identify oxides, soils, and clays from satellite images. With location intelligence, researchers and scientists can identify exact resources.

Location intelligence is an ideal platform to search for new mineral deposits as data sources from various sources such as satellite images, geologic maps, and geophysical images, can be put in formats that allow them to be brought together to determine important results. As well, GIS can help scientists and researchers perform such tasks as: data collection, analysis, reporting, management, and forecasting. They can collect field data electronically using GPS receivers and other data collections can be downloaded from the internet. All of the data groups can be integrated, manipulated, and analyzed using location intelligence solutions. Various applications can be employed for a variety of tasks such as managing borehole data. With such data as elevation, geophysics, and geochemistry, geological cross sections can be created. The overall result is more accurate data and analysis which will help management make better business decisions, reduce exploration waste costs, and it gives the company a competitive edge.

Location intelligence solutions provide all of the essential tools needed to complete the mapping and analysis for the early stages of mineral exploration. By using this innovative and advanced technology, technical and research staff have the ability to create, modify, import, and display data in easy to understand formats for easy interpretation. They also have the ability to zoom-in and pan around areas in real-time and manipulate, modify, and analyze the data to predict possible outcomes. It is also used to assist geologists in identifying trends and anomalies in the various types of data gathered from the different sources. As well, it can also help identify false anomalies that would normally not be apparent when using conventional methods of analysis.

The underlying mapping and visualization capabilities of location intelligence allow mineral exploration companies to integrate and analyze exploration information which gives them the ability to make critical decisions accurately and with confidence. Location intelligence is a vital support tool for the mineral exploration industry.

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Business Solutions: Social Networking and Location Intelligence

By: Adriana Noton - November 1st, 2010  Filed under: spatial analysis Add Comment

Today, more than 500 million people use Facebook. Other social networking sites such as Twitter are being used by millions of web users from around the world. People use these social networking sites to connect with friends and family as well as to provide a great deal of personal information to users in their networking group. For businesses, social networking sites provide enormous potential for building a brand and attracting sales. The key to leveraging social networks is to use these networks as a powerful research and data collection tool in order to identify and target relevant customers. To achieve their social networking marketing goals, businesses are now taking advantage of location intelligence solutions.

Today, the top social networks according to the number of registered users include: Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live/Bing, Flickr, and LinkedIn. Using location intelligence solutions to gather social networking data for social analysis allows businesses to build large consumer databases based on their own defined parameters. The data gathered can include: consumer demographics, location of the consumer, as well as consumer lifestyle, behavior, personality characteristics, shopping habits, interests…etc. As well, the emergence of mobile devices such as the iphone and ipad allow businesses to harness the power of location awareness from the spatial data.

There are business intelligence software solutions that provide effective social network analysis. They are designed to help businesses identify exactly where to market their products and services. Within a social network, the social relationships are viewed as individuals within the social networks as well as their relationship with other users. The software is used to research social network users and obtain an all-inclusive view of the users’ actions, behaviors, and interests, in order to leverage new marketing areas. Social data maps are created to show the common links among individuals, other users in the network, and the groups in the social network. Once social analysis has been completed, a business able is able to create and implement marketing strategies that can include: conversational marketing (i.e. online dialogue such as in a Blog or on Twitter), Influence Marketing (targeting an individual who has influence over potential buyers in the network), Similarity Group Marketing (leverage existing relationships to build brand recognition and customer loyalty), Word of Mouth Marketing (i.e. creating viral videos), and much more. Companies will also have the ability to target influential Blog conversations for the purpose of direct marketing and brand advertising.

Harvesting information from people belonging to various social networks allows a company to create an effective and large consumer database. Social media marketing solutions involve using the data collected to create and implement such marketing solutions as: running targeted banner ads, creating social network online ad campaigns, and providing customers with useful information through various online communication methods. The fundamental objective to achieving success when using social media networks to market or build a brand is delivering advertising and services that are valuable to the users and are not viewed as intrusive.

Using Business Location Intelligence Solutions to harness the marketing power of online social networking is fast becoming a vital component to improving a business’s bottom line, building a brand, and attracting and maintaining a loyal customer base.

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The Future of Business Intelligence: Innovations in Location Intelligence

By: Adriana Noton - November 1st, 2010  Filed under: postal code map, spatial analysis Add Comment

In the coming years, many business analysts are predicting that Business Intelligence (BI) will play a central role in the success of a multitude of different types of businesses. This is due to the fact that more businesses are recognizing the benefits of spatial data analysis in making smarter business decisions. Employing business intelligence solutions provides such benefits as: identifying the location of targeted customers, understanding customers better, reaching targeted customers, optimizing business operations, managing revenue more efficiently, minimizing risks, and forecasting potential problems. Because of changing consumer lifestyles that now includes incorporating technology in their daily lives, the future and innovation of location intelligence is expected to focus on such technological innovations as the internet and mobile technology such as iphones. The result of utilizing location intelligence solutions in a world where technology is now a part of nearly everybody’s life is greatly improved business performance.

Businesses use location intelligence solutions to gather, organize, and analyze consumer data through the use of geographic patterns and relationships. Because consumer trends are shifting to using such technology as the internet, iPhones, etc, on a daily basis, business intelligence teams must now harness the opportunities this technology has created in order to improve their marketing strategies and reach their targeted market. In addition, the changing economic environment has resulted in diminished marketing budgets which have made the development effective and successful marketing strategies even more vital.

Today the internet has created a world wide market that does not have any geographical boundaries. For instance, it has been estimated that 1 billion people will access social networks by the year 2014 and most of the users will use a location based application. Businesses now have the ability to communicate directly with their targeted customers and meet their demands in order to gain a competitive edge. As well, marketers will be better able to identify current consumer trends and forecast future trends. It will also help them create and implement more effective business strategies that have a better chance of achieving success. A business will be able to better understand customer behavior, recognize and take advantage of unexpected opportunities, and predict problems before they occur.

Social computing, cloud computing, and mobile computing, are now a part of most people’s daily lives. Future innovations in location intelligence will allow companies to harness these technologies to develop effective strategies to reach their customers. For instance, taking advantage of consumer driven technological applications will involve incorporating such areas as marketing, product promotion, customer loyalty, point of purchase, etc., into these applications. As well, using Real-Time Business Intelligence to gain instant information will become essential to achieving success.

Because of the emergence of huge spatial data sources such as Google maps, more consumers are adopting location based applications such as iPhone Apps, businesses must now engage in innovative thinking to capitalize on the data. In the future, technological advancements will result in business intelligence undergoing a fundamental shift that will revolutionize the way business decisions are made. Businesses who do not embrace this shift will definitely be at a serious disadvantage when trying to succeed in such an intensely competitive world.

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Benefits of Spatial Location Intelligence Solutions

By: Adriana Noton - August 12th, 2010  Filed under: spatial analysis Add Comment

In a world where businesses have the ability to target customers in all areas within a country and even global regions, it has become essential to utilize technology to better identify business solutions and make better business decisions in regards to marketing, identifying current trends, reaching customers, and developing a complete awareness of potential problems and key relationships and patterns. The use of spatial location intelligence solutions has become vital in helping businesses achieve their goals.

The following outlines the benefits of utilizing spatial location intelligence solutions:

Real-Time Access to Information: Today, information gathering is essential to maintaining business success. Technological advancements have resulted in available information growing at a rapid rate. Spatial location intelligence allows businesses to gather a wide variety of data in various formats and put the information in a workable format that allows for easy access and understanding. Such format can include: digital displays, graphs, charts…etc.

Efficient Management of Spatial Data: Spatial location intelligence solutions provide businesses with the ability to manage data as needed. As well, company’s can integrate the data to make it relevant to their specific criteria for a particular region. This allows them more flexibility to better manage their data, visualize scenarios, solve problems, and make better business decisions.

Precision Search Queries: Utilizing spatial data allows for better representation of such features as transportation routes, buildings, water ways, retail locations, property lines, postal code boundaries, communication objects such as cell phone towers, and much more. As well, there is more precise location information for such features and objects as hospitals, bridges, street addresses, flood zones, earthquake zones, and residential and business addresses. It also allows for the identification of relationships of geographic features and objects in an area. Such formulas can be used to calculate driving times, proximities, travel distances, and more. The goal is to make more informed business decisions.

Real-world Applications: Spatial location intelligence solutions can be used in a wide variety of areas such as in Government for such tasks as economic development, public safety, health safety, homeland security, and land records. Key features include: managing geospatial information referenced by latitude/longitude, ensuring precision and accuracy, and supports space and time based searches. As well, such organizations as the Military, meteorology, and oceanography benefit from using spatial location intelligence solutions. For businesses, they can analyze demographic data to find regions to sell their products or services. Data collected using the Geographic Information System will help businesses acquire a better market picture of a particular market region much faster and easier.

There are numerous benefits to utilizing spatial location intelligence solutions. Businesses are able to successfully visualize and map analyzed data to identify current shopping trends, consumer lifestyle trends, changing demographics, specific geographical objects and features, to help them better understand their business markets in order to boost productivity, improve business performance, increase profitability, and generate revenue. The most important benefit of using spatial location intelligence solutions is to help businesses leverage their data to make better businesses decisions, as well as improving their bottom line.

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Location Intelligence: More Than Just Plotting Map Coordinates

By: Adriana Noton - June 15th, 2010  Filed under: GIS, Maps Add Comment

In this fast paced and ever-changing business environment that now spans the globe, location intelligence solutions allows businesses to turn data from numerous sources into a powerful means of making smart business decisions. Map visualization applications within location intelligence solutions allow a business to interpret and understand analyzed data to determine key relationships and issues that require urgent attention and implement solutions that achieve the best results.

Businesses have the ability to use map visualization such as address management online applications that includes gathering information about postal codes, transportation routes, retail districts, community features, location of key points of interest such as hospitals and schools, waterways, and many other relevant objects to determine marketing strategies, operational strategies, business development and implementation, and more. It makes the information easy to read and understand when viewed so that a business manager can make critical decisions through effective analysis.

Location intelligence has a number of benefits for a business seeking to improve operations, improve their bottom-line, reduce spending waste by implementing correct strategies, and reach more potential customers. With so much data mined from a variety of sources, location intelligence allows data to be linked directly, use interactive filters and controls to allow analysts to select and view analyzed information in real time and execute speedy deployment, and identify common relationships from different data sources. This significantly reduces the time and effort evaluating a variety of scenarios which makes for better decision making and implement the best strategy that will the achieve the most favorable results.

Location intelligence that includes map visualization and address management online allows analysts to evaluate multi layered data according to their specific needs in order to come to the best solutions to complex problems by displaying the data clearly on a map. As well, various business departments can integrate data from other departments to understand sales trends, performance trends, customer shopping habits and preferences, and other key areas to make better business decisions.

Location intelligence allows for the geocoding of data to allow for interactive mapping
That allows an analyst to reach conclusions based on location-based data visualization. The user utilizes data filters to show only the data that meets their specified parameters which is highly adaptable. The benefit is that the multidimensional data on a map allows an analyst to run different scenarios and generate possible outcomes so a business manager can make the soundest decision. For example, when a government allocates moneys in an economic stimulus plan for thousands of projects across the country, location applications allows an analyst to determine where the money disbursed will have the greatest impact.

Address management online provides insight into product demand, consumer lifestyle and behavior to provide a complete geographic depiction. Mapping and analytical solutions when analyzing data analysis helps a business predict customer needs and optimize marketing strategies. Address management allows a business to create a rich database of customer profiles that can be accessed in real time to better gain a competitive edge over similar businesses in the area by identifying current and future trends. As well, businesses can use the data to cut unnecessary operational expenses, streamline workflow, and generate more revenue.

Location Intelligence Solutions gives businesses the tools to make the most out of their data. They will be at more of an advantage to leverage the analyzed information to better optimize business performance, resolve problems quickly, and implement plans that result in business success.

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Succeeding In The Marketplace Using Business Management And Location Intelligence

By: Adriana Noton - April 19th, 2010  Filed under: coordinate systems, Local Search, Maps Add Comment

With any downturn in the economy businesses scramble to find better ways of conducting their enterprise. Some of the more effective ways include careful analysis of each work module required to accomplish the job. A careful annotation of what happens along the way from the manufactured product, transportation to the store, reception, stocking the shelves, marketing the product and sales to customers and allows for a systematic review of the business. Careful application of business management and location intelligence may save a struggling business.

With profit in mind anything that can be done to reduce time handling or price increases the bottom line. While this may appear obvious is a complex task especially with products that require considerable handling between the market and the store will require special storage or are expensive. Just-in-time manufacturing reduced overhead for companies by preventing stocking store parts this concept applies to retail market as well.

It is important to carefully document everything that happens to the product no matter how innocuous it may appear. Frequently flowcharts are drawn which allow for a step-by-step visual representation of the overall process. Having just visual picture allows the manager and employees to document problems or hold ups within the steps. Just drawing a flowchart of the incremental pathway will help in identifying unnecessary steps or steps that could be combined. Focusing on the most difficult areas will allow for the greatest improvement in the system.

As one digs deeper into the process as it becomes clear that each step is in some way dependent on the step before it and so it is helpful to add an element of time into each module. I carefully analyzing the time management of the system one can identify a critical path that is the sequence of the sub-processes which cannot be done in parallel but must be done in series such that any delay increases the overall system timing.

Added years to gain the greatest successes include their employees in the analysis of the work. Those individuals closest to the work that once were doing a hands-on daily activities are a gold mine of ideas on how to do it better. A smart manager learns to harness these ideas and doesn’t cost money go against policy or cause a safety concern should try the ideas even if he’s not sure it will work.

Prior what type of management approach one chooses to employ to gain efficiency one must eliminate either steps resources or manpower but there is increasing attention being given to a new concept. This is a new notion that tries to leverage the data within processes that link the system by location. Including a geographic component in the analysis of product provision is another way to increase efficiency.

This new concept is not as complicated as it may sound. The idea of including a component of location to the analysis of which products to sell place on special or insure to remain in stock makes sense once it has been added to the analysis. By harvesting the data of sales patterns in multiple locations businesses can focus on providing the locally demanded products in the areas with greatest turnover. This provides a tremendous efficiency by reducing warehousing and allows for greater sales.

Tough times drive management to make difficult decisions. These decisions may even include reduction of employees which contrary to employee believes is not something management wants to do. It’s possible to use a combination of business management, postal code map, and location intelligence to increase profit and efficiency businesses are more likely to be able to retain employees and stay successful even in a down market.

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A Brief Overview Of A Postal Code Map

By: Adriana Noton - December 9th, 2009  Filed under: GIS, Maps, postal code map Add Comment

Throughout the world the use of a postal code map has become a recognized way to sent mail through the postal service. Postal codes make it possible for postal stations across the globe to use scanners and distribute mail to far reaching locations more efficiently and effectively.

There are many types of scanners used that are designed for postal codes. Some of the most popular scanners read bar codes that direct mail based on the code that has been placed on a label containing data that is affixed to the letter with a label.

Other scanners are designed to read handwritten letters and numbers as letters pass through a large scanning machine. When the writing cannot be read by the scanner it is passed to a human that must then place the letter is the correct bags for transfer to a centralized mail distribution center.

Most countries have small postal stations in villages and towns where mail is collected and distributed for that area. However, the mail that is collected is transferred to a large collection center in major metropolitan areas where the mail of several towns is sorted and packaged for shipment to locations throughout the world.

Scanning machines may be very large and are secured to the floor with several chain link conveyors that move mail to the machine. As the mail is scanned, it is transferred to bags for local distribution, national distribution, or international distribution. The department that must manually sort mail often use a small hand held scanner that records the letters and numbers that have been written. The scanned image is input into the central memory of the main scanning machine and when that type of writing is found on another envelope, the scanner can translate the writing into the appropriate bar code.

Many people find that when they have inserted the wrong postal code on a letter or parcel, it is delivered to a foreign location even though the handwritten address is correct. This is because very few letters and parcels are viewed or scanned by humans.

The scanning machines that are used have a global location intelligence in the hard drive upon which all mail is distributed. In some cases a scanner will read a one instead of a seven when scanner and the letter or parcel will be shipping to the location that is indicated by the postal code map to be the closest to that number.

When a person is unsure of the correct postal code to use on a letter or parcel, they are often able to get a local, or government postal code map that has a breakdown of the country and it’s postal code. Many large countries that have several codes for certain regions utilize several maps for the area.

As more electronic records are being standardized and records are being kept in centralized locations the use of postal code maps is becoming a vital part of the process of organizing records electronically. Using postal codes to sort clients and customers by city or region makes it easier to find the records for individual.

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